1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to medical devices, but more directly relates to devices utilized to provide for temporary occlusion in the vasculature during surgical procedures.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior art devices incorporated inflation of balloons to provide for temporary occlusions in the vasculature, whereby an inflatable balloon attached to the distal end of a guidewire having an internal inflation lumen is inflated. Such a device is useful during cross stream thrombectomy procedures where the guidewire having an internal inflation lumen can be used as an ordinary guidewire. Alternatively, such a device can also be useful to prevent downstream distribution of lysins beyond a region of thrombus or other undesirable buildup. The structure of the prior art devices incorporated to operate the guidewire having an internal inflation lumen often included a collection of multiple components coupled together to provide for connection of multiple tubes, valves, syringes, connectors and other associated components. Often the assembled collection of components proved to be of an unwieldy nature and often was cumbersome to use. In addition to the user unfriendly aspects of the prior art devices, other problems were encountered when aligning the guidewire having an internal inflation lumen in the vasculature. Due to the small size of the guidewire with a lumen and due to the lack of robustness, undesirable kinking and bending of the guidewire occurred when positioning the guidewire along the vasculature. Such undesirable kinking and bending also occurred when the guidewire having a lumen was torqued or twisted about its flexible longitudinal axis in order to steer a flexible tip along tortuous paths of the vasculature. The present invention, an occlusive guidewire system having an ergonomic handheld control mechanism and torqueable kink-resistant guidewire, overcomes the inadequacies of the prior art devices.